OCTOBER 25, 2012

On the radio today, while washing my face in the bathroom,

I heard an African poacher describe his occupation. His
specialty, he claimed, was elephants. The interviewer asked
him what he thought about the fact that scientists who study
elephants have found that they conduct elaborate funeral
rituals for their dead. The poacher snickered, oh yes he knew
all about the funerals. The event, to him, was a boon because
it meant if he killed one elephant soon others would arrive to
mourn, providing the opportunity to kill them as well. Kill
one and the others will soon come to mourn, the fools, he
said. He seemed gleeful about the funeral situation. I could
not believe my ears. So badly it made me hate humanity, even
more than I already do, which is saying a lot. Desperately
I wanted to capture this poacher and torture him in the
ghastliest ways I could imagine. I stopped washing my
face in the sink and let the water drip from my beard onto
the countertop, and I imagined how I would first begin by
burning his skin and then removing the burned skin with
pliers and then how I would douse the open wounds with
lemon and salt and tobacco, and that would be day one. My
imaginary torture would drag on for a very long time. I felt
great satisfaction and pleasure in imagining the ways I would
torture this man. I resolved to do research on torture methods,
to find better, more effective ways to hurt him. Eventually,
I supposed, I might kill him; but not for many years. For
many years I would keep him chained in a mud pit inside
a shed in my back yard, where I would take great pleasure
inflicting as much pain and agony as possible on this person.
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A pit, so that he could shit and piss and live in his own filth.
Killing him, I decided, was out of the question. I would feel
bad about killing him, not because I took his life, which he
rightly deserved to have taken, but because it would mean
that he no longer received my punishment. In other words, I
would regret that he got to escape the pain.
Alternate universe in which Jimi Hendrix did not die, in which
Hendrix recorded with Miles Davis, as they had planned to
do before Hendrix died, a European toura story
At the end of his life, Miles Davis began painting. Art Deco
meets Basquiat.
Miles Davis, 1959-1972. Best years of his musical output, in
my opinion.
Jean-Luc Godard, 1961-1967. Best years of his cinematic
output, in my opinion.
Today in 1932, Sylvia Plath was born in Boston. Goddamn,
I love her poetry.
You know her husband, Ted Hughes? I hate him. He wakes
in me a fury, Im not exactly sure why, but I am conscious of
the fact that I resent his censorship of Plaths work after her
death, that he supposedly destroyed some of her material.
Often, I imagine the moment of her death. But even more
often, I fantasize about her pubic hair.
Do we know if Miles Davis was circumcised? For better or
worse, I imagine his schlong as sheathed. And also curved to
the right when erect. Godard, on the other hand, I imagine
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with a small but fat penis, circumcised and perhaps with

genital warts. In this fantasy, he did not have genital warts
until after he stopped having sex with Anna Karina. I do
not wish to imagine Anna Karina with a sexually transmitted
disease. I do, however, wish to imagine her pubic hair.
I can picture the pubic hair of Anna Karina and Sylvia Plath
in two ways: wild and unkempt or shaven completely bald.
For some reason I have a hard time imagining a middle
ground, where either of them trimmed, styled, or otherwise
groomed their pubic hair.
I can, however, easily imagine Miles Davis carving shapes
into his pubic hair. Godard, Im not sure. I have a hard time
picturing his pubic hair.
I picture Ted Hughes as a Ken doll with no genitalia.
Perhaps you are familiar with the photography of Lee Miller?
She was an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue Magazine
in the 1930s and 40s. Of particular interest to me is the fact
that she was one of the first journalists at the scene of the
liberation of the Dachau Concentration Camp in April of
1945. My paternal grandfather was one of the soldiers in the
lead battalion responsible for liberating that camp. I have this
fantasy that my grandfather had an affair with Lee Miller.
Probably he didnt, though.
My allergies are killing me. Hurricane Sandy is killing people
up in New York City right now.
President Obama got reelected.
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The Lakers fired Mike Brown as head coach.

My brother sent me a Gchat with a link to the following
logic problem:
Question: There is an island upon which a tribe resides. The
tribe consists of 1000 people, 100 of which are blue-eyed and
900 of which are brown-eyed. Yet, their religion forbids them
to know their own eye color, or even to discuss the topic;
thus, one resident can see the eye colors of all other residents
but has no way of discovering his own (there are no reflective
surfaces). If a tribesperson does discover his or her own eye
color, then their religion compels them to commit ritual
suicide at noon the following day in the village square for
all to witness. All the tribes people are highly logical, highly
devout, and they all know that each other is also highly
logical and highly devout. One day, a blue-eyed foreigner
visits to the island and wins the complete trust of the tribe.
One evening, he addresses the entire tribe to thank them
for their hospitality. However, not knowing the customs, the
foreigner makes the mistake of mentioning eye color in his
address, mentioning in his address how unusual it is to see
another blue-eyed person like myself in this region of the
world. What effect, if anything, does this faux pas have on
the tribe?
What makes this question interesting is that there is one
convincing argument that the travelers comments have no
effect, and another convincing argument that the travelers
comment will have a dramatic effect. Which argument is true
and what is the logical flaw in the other argument?
Argument I: The foreigner has no effect; because his
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comments do not tell the tribe anything that they do not

already know (everyone in the tribe can already see that there
are several blue-eyed people in their tribe).
Argument II: 100 days after the address, all the blue eyed
people commit suicide.
Somehow, Ive lost the rest of this email exchange, so Im not
quite sure how those are the two options. But my brother says
to me, Knowing what other people know affects what you
know about things outside of them. Which got me thinking.
Sometimes I am stunned by how smart and interesting my
brother has become.
I read an article online about how passwords are pass. The
age of the password has come to an end. It tells me not to
repeat passwords, which isnt easy because I have no memory
whatsoever. I may as well self-diagnosis myself as an amnesiac
or a victim of Korsakoff s psychosis. I killed so many brain
cells in my teens and twenties, there arent many remaining. I
use like three or four different passwords for everything. If I
didnt, I would never remember my own password. You wont
ever guess my passwords, though. And I doubt an automated
hacking program would get them either. Theres little chance
of my accounts being hacked, yet I am vaguely concerned.
Vaguely.
Taught Djuna Barness Nightwood for the past two weeks in
my introduction to Modernism class. Before that, my students
read Henry Millers Tropic of Cancer. After Thanksgiving,
they will read and I will lecture on Gertrude Steins Tender
Buttons.
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